Online retailers need to plan their Christmas ofers now, says Fastlane International
Even Santa would find it tricky if everyone sent their Christmas lists to him on just one day...
(PRWEB UK) 3 June 2015
This Sunday marks 200 days until Christmas, and the London-based global courier Fastlane International is urging e-tailers and customers to plan now for the Christmas ‘twin peaks’ of Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Fastlane International spokesman David Jinks MILT says: ‘Online retailers need to learn from the lessons of recent years. Fastlane International’s research reveals that last Christmas saw a record $2.68bn spent on Cyber Monday globally, creating 5.5 million orders for Amazon alone on this one day. This sounds great, but some companies struggled to fulfil these orders, and there’s good evidence that the peak trading days were “robbing Peter to pay Paul”.’
Says David: ‘Our research shows that overall sales for online and in-store on Black Friday fell from $59.1bn in 2012 to $50.9bn last year in the US, and doubtless some of this ‘lost’ spend was simply transferred to online purchases on Monday; adding further strain to e-tailer’s supply chains.’
David adds: ‘The US has perhaps still to learn the lessons of Christmas 2013, when, as reported by NBC on Christmas Day, even long-established and respected companies such as UPS and FedEx ran into trouble delivering online sales. Our research shows that the artificial spike created by “Cyber week” can overload fulfilment centers and lead to stock replenishment problems. For example some traders had trouble replenishing stocks between Friday and Monday, reflected in the average online order for Friday, $159, falling back to $124 on Monday as some customers struggled to find items in stock.’
David observes: ‘Our research also shows US sales were quieter than expected during the first weeks of December following this “Cyber frenzy”. Online shopping for this key week grew by 24% with revenues up by 27%, but overall the rest of the Christmas period was down by 11%.’
David concludes: ‘Successful retailers will be already be deep in planning for the season: ordering stock; ensuring warehouse and staffing capacity, and organising their logistics campaigns. But e-tailers need to think hard about their Christmas plans and perhaps consider staggering offers more. This will ease the logistics bottleneck and savvy customers will still get bargain online prices. Even Santa would find it tricky if everyone sent their Christmas lists to him on just one day!’
Fastlane International is already geared up for Christmas, find out more at: http://www.wedelivertheworld.co.uk/about-us/what-we-do/christmas-present-delivery/
